The range of do it yourself home projects goes from “easy does it” jobs like painting to highly skilled electrical and plumbing jobs, some of which should be left to a professional. But some jobs fall into the true grit category and those require the likes of a Rooster Cogburn or Mattie Ross.

If you’re known as persistent, resilient and determined you have what it takes to tackle some challenging remodeling jobs, which are ambitious because they require so much time and stick-to-ness. I’m thinking about a first-time homeowner who took on the job of removing layers of wallpaper in all the rooms of a handyman special. Or how about the guy who insisted on unfreezing a frozen water pipe, not in interior wall, it was a pipe that could only be reached by crawling under the house and working on his back on cold, wet ground. Just wiggling his way into position to get to the pipe required the strength and dexterity of a gymnast.

A neighbor showed true grit when he decided to save money and restore his entire lawn, by manually removing all the weeds and layers of thick thatch, a job that took him most of the summer. The next summer he built a stone fence surrounding his property, another tedious and labor intensive project.

If you have true remodeling grit, I salute you. If you don’t, you’re like countless others who stand in awe as we call a contractor for those seemingly unending jobs.

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